1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a layer editor for a pen-based computer and, more particularly, to system where user identification of layers does not require text input, commands can be applied to the layers using a marking menu approach and where the invocation of the marking menus is facilitated by large “hit areas” for the menus in the layer editor.
2. Description of the Related Art
Pen or stylus based computers, such as tablet personal computers (PCs) and personal digital assistants (PDAs) are becoming popular. These computers typically allow the user to interact with the computer through a graphical user interface using a stylus or pen (or possibly even a finger). A keyboard and a mouse are typically not available. Pen-based type interaction can be limiting as compared to other types of interaction, such as using the mouse or the keyboard, alone or in combination. What is needed are improvements to the interaction capability of pen-based computers.
User interfaces—UI (layer editors) providing access to the layer functionality of paint systems are designed for mouse based user interfaces. Layer editors provide a representation of each paint layer that can be manipulated or edited. Typical examples are the layer editor in PhotoShop or the layer editor in “Fractal paint”. These types of UI present difficulties when operated on pen-based computers. Specifically, the naming of layers in a traditional UI requires text input and this is hard to do with a pen. Also, buttons and widgets on a traditional UI can be too small to accurately hit with a pen. What is needed is a system that will allow writing based naming of layers and controls that can be more easily targeted with a pen or stylus.
In addition, most keyboard and mouse based user layer editor interfaces use hot-keys to allow a user to quickly access layer commands that are normally in menu-items on the menu bar or on pop-up menus. With a pen based user interface no keyboard may be available or the user may prefer not to use the keyboard. What is needed is to provide pen-based computers fast access capability somewhat equivalent to hot key capability.